Russian traditional and postnonclassical psychological perspectives on person-centered mental health care

Abstract

The article aims to demonstrate advances in methodological means suggested by L.S. Vygotsky’s cultural-historical concept in application to benefits of clinical psychology and medicine, in development of a theoretical model of person-centered mental health care. This is achieved through the fact that the cultural-historical concept (due to its humanistic nature and epistemological content) is closely related to the model of person-centered integrative diagnosis. But for all that the concept corresponds to the ideals of postnonclassical model of scientific rationality with a number of “key” features. Above all it manifests its “ methodological maturity” to cope with open self-developing systems , which is most essential at the modern stage of scientific knowledge. According to authors’ opinion, this approach applied in theoretical and practical fields of clinical psychology and mental health care is highly efficient on the current stage of the science evolution due to potential of new methodological context of postnonclassical model of rationality and completeness of cultural-historical concept concerning person and its mind as a self-developing open systems. The authors emphasize the importance of consideration of a number of methodological principles, such as the principle of subjectivity, principle of systematization, the principle of probabilistic and complex causation, as well as the development principle, and the principle of partnership, for the implementation of the person-centered approach to diagnosis and treatment. The article gives consideration to the high prospects of such mental constructs as the “subjective pattern of disease” and the “social situation of personal development in disease” within the context of person-centered integrative diagnosis.